Ask HN: Please review my Mac App | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Please review my Mac App

goto11.net

59 pointsnrj29 comments

Hello HN,

In my limited spare time I have been working on a small side project, it is an application for Mac OS X called OneWay. To sum it up, it is a contextual FTP, SFTP uploader (upload only) that integrates into the Finder's Context Menu. It allows you to upload any files and folders in your Finder simply by selecting them and right-clicking. You can also easily add frequently used locations to your context menu for future use! And You don't even need the application open!

Basically my goal was to create the easiest possible uploading solution that is light-weight and doesn't require me to open a Terminal. While applications like Cyberduck and Transmit are great, they really offer way more functionality than I need. I found that 90% of the time when I use FTP/SFTP I am only uploading, and secondly I find that I am often uploading to the same places (host, directory).

Of course, there are bugs... But how will I find them if I don't push it out the door already! With that said here are some helpful things to keep in mind.

#10.5 (Leopard) Users#

Unfortunately there are a few known issues for you. Firstly, it is out of my control but your contextual menu items will be added to your Finder under the "More -> OneWay" menu. If you do NOT see them there at all for some reason, please try restarting your Finder. You can do this by opening a Terminal, and typing `killall Finder`.

#10.6 (Snow Leopard) Users#

Your contextual menu items will live in the top level of your Finder menu! Though please note that in order to SEE the menu items you MUST have at least 1 file or folder selected. Also note, that if you add enough menu items, OSX will group them all under the "Services" menu instead of in the top level.

Thanks for checking out my app guys. Please post any feedback or bugs that you find.

Nick

I'm sure those example files were legally obtained if you're posting them publicly :)

Of course! :)

Nice! This is a perfect little utility for uploading files to a backup server. I regularly post family photos to a remote server via sftp. ExpanDrive has been my goto solution for ease of use, but OneWay presents even less friction. When my needs are a little more complex I tend to hit the command line.

I use it for this as well. I've also been thinking about adding support for a one-directional rsync.

If you were to add a "rsync to" context item to a folders ctrl-click, you'd officially be my hero.

Same here - I can really see myself turning to OneWay instead of Expandrive for a lot of those regular, simple little tasks.

Nice work , nrj.

I tried your app -- nice app. I like the idea.

A suggestion: One thing would be nice is the ability to have the url of the file copied into the clipboard once the file is uploaded. Like with TinyGrab, when you take a screenshot and it uploads the image. It would probably mean adding a new textfield (for the base url) in the form for adding a new bookmark. Might be useful for sharing files that you just uploaded.

Edit: i didn't think about when you upload multiple files, though. Maybe it would be the last file uploaded?

Yea, I have been thinking about how to do this right. It would be easy to allow a user to optionally add a "Public Base URL" for a bookmark that you upload to, but like you said, that would really only work if you are uploading 1 file.

Definitely open to suggestions on this one.

Automatically copying the URL to the clipboard could irritate some users. They may be using the clipboard for something else. A couple of alternatives:

* Right click on an item in the list and have an option to 'Copy URL'?

* Hover over an item in the list and a 'Copy URL' button appears? (Similar to how more information is provided when you hover over a youtube comment.)

>> Right click on an item in the list and have an option to 'Copy URL'?

This is precisely what I was thinking, but how does this work if you have uploaded a folder containing 100 files? Or 100 individual files. I really would like to implement this feature I'm just not sure the best way to deal with multi-file uploads.

I havent tried the app so I'm not entirely familiar with how it works, but surely right clicking on the folder and coping will copy a link to that folder. If however, you right click on one of the files within that folder and select 'copy url' then it will copy the url that points directly to that file.

It sounds like it should be fairly simple to design.

Neat idea. Honestly? I'd find it more valuable to have a "copy to dropbox public folder & copy public url" shortcut.

Thanks for making it open source! I'm learning iPhone dev and this small app will be great to me to jump on OS X dev later on.

Very nice and Lifehacker picked up your app via the One Thing Well blog. Congrats!

http://lifehacker.com/5537304/oneway-puts-ftp-uploads-in-you...

http://onethingwell.org/post/592716083/oneway

For those who have just purchased Transmit 4, it has been overhauled with many Applescript additions. Using that on Snow Leopard, it would be very easy to create your own contextual items with Automator.

That being said, if I didn’t already have a nice FTP solution, this would be a great little app.

Good show mate. I was using cyberduck for something just like this usecase and was getting annoyed at how many clicks it took to upload a couple files many times and thinking to myself I should fork it and add in my usecase to cyberduck. I will be watching this.

One suggestion, an option to use it like tinygrab. Right click, 1) it uploads the file 2) Moves it to trash 3) copies a bit.ly URL to the file

Like TinyGrab for files, this would make large file sharing much easier

Very nice app, nrj!

Windows users can use WinSCP for similar functionality:

http://tinyapps.org/blog/windows/200710220700_send_to_sftp.h...

I've been thinking about building something like this for years, I have just never had the bandwidth to get around to it. Thank you for doing it for me!

Somewhat off topic CSS suggestion. Add this to your header :)

   border-bottom: 1px solid #C7C9CB;

Nice, I like it. A couple friends have pointed out some design oddities.. definitely where my skills are lacking.

This is cool, thanks! I wish it supported Amazon's S3 -- the tool I'm currently using is terrible. :-)

Be sure to "Check for Updates" in the "OneWay" menu. Amazon S3, and SCP will be coming soon.

Looks like a great app. I'm a dev for Rackspace Cloud Files, and I'd love to see Cloud Files support in OneWay. Let me know how I can help. My email address is in my profile.

It'd also be awesome to see WebDAV support. The application I use to store files on my phone uses WebDAV, and OneWay would be perfect for adding files.

I will definitely use this. Going to install it when I get home [no Mac at work :( ].

tried OneWay out, works great, really easy to use. Great work. Thank you.

I'm not a mac user, but I really think this is a great idea. Your website does a good job at informing the visitor about the software and I think the benefit is clear to the right visitors.

Good luck.

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